Reddit reviews Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook
We found 34 Reddit comments about Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Reddit reviews Antifa: The Anti-Fascist HandbookWe found 34 Reddit comments about Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
>They promote peace and love while fighting fascism.
I wouldn't go that far. If you want a good book about antifa there's this.
Pay no attention to the reviews, it's mostly alt-right goons who probably haven't even read the thing and are just pissy somebody could make an actual effort to understand this shit.
A lot of these groups are violent, but one also has to understand the context they are coming out of, which is basically a sort of low level conflict that's been simmering between the radical left and right for almost a century. People who think neo-fascist/racist political organizations and groups aren't dangerous aren't paying attention. They are. Hence a complete lack of tolerance towards them on the part of the far-left
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Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Antifa-Anti-Fascist-Handbook-Mark-Bray/dp/1612197035
Not available yet on Barnes & Noble, but Bezo's little site had it available one day after Charlottesville. How interesting!
Strictly speaking, there is no Antifa organization anymore, originally "Antifaschistische Aktion", a pre-WW2 German antifascist movement, and it's basically an ideology and ways of organizing agaist fascism and racism.
Many left-wing socialist and anarchist groups have adopted their methods.
What the rightwing media is trying to push is that basically the Black Bloc is "Antifa", they're the ones with masks that people normally first think of whenever Antifa is mentioned and on the occasion doing the vandalism bits.
There are many other groups that do not do that and are aligned with Antifa views and methods, like Maledicte said.
Recommended reading: Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook by Mark Bray. He was on a podcast a while back explaining the basics, but I've forgotten what it was. I'll update when I remember/find it.
edit: Ah, here it is, it's on The Gist podcast from Slate, here it is.
The interview with Bray starts at around 4min 40secs.
edit2: I just realized that my comment makes it sound that I'm down on the Black Bloc, but it's not as clear-cut as that. Yeah, I disagree with some of their methods, but they are Activists with a capital 'A' and they don't shy away from direct action which I can respect.
Always applicable quote from 'The Anti-Fascist Handbook':
"It is important to note, however, that the vast majority of people who oppose limiting free speech on political grounds are not free speech absolutists. They all have their exceptions to the rule, whether obscenity, incitement to violence, copyright infringement, press censorship during wartime, or restrictions for the incarcerated.
If we rephrase the terms of the debate by taking these exceptions into account, we can see that many liberals support limiting the free speech of working-class teens busted for drugs, but not limiting the free speech of Nazis. Many are fine when the police quash the free speech of the undocumented by hunting them down, while they amplify the speech of the Klan by protecting them. They advocate curtailing ads for cigarettes but not ads for white supremacy.
All of these examples limit speech. The only difference is that liberals pretend that their limitations are apolitical, while anti-fascists embrace an avowedly political rejection of fascism."
The thing I can't get over is the fact that there is an actual Antifa Handbook out there which actually details the ideology of prominent antifa groups as well as their histories and how they operate. But if the guy who made this actually read this book his head might explode once he realizes how reasonable it is
"And she, my family, and our friends are not fascists but they often support fascist ideals without know it." - there, that's it. EVERY leftist goes through this at some point.
One of the first things you could do is educate them on the origins of fascism. I mean this in a non confrontational sense. The unlearning process can be a painful one though so many people will disengage. It's tricky, all you can do is supply the information. Through learning the origins of what fascism is, they may grasp how it never went away and how it still effects us, daily. You could start with the following quote:
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Giovanni Gentile
Few more useful links below:
How fascism works
The new faces of fascism
Antifa Handbook
Alt America
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8AcmzqFdPM&t=11s - on Nazism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUFvG4RpwJI&t=1108s - again on Nazism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ClScOsE-4&t=78s - on fascism & socialism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1O3DWDzyv8&t=7s - capitalism & fascism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_rto6JPYQ8 - neoliberalism & fascism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Nb3wbpljo - fascism & the political compass
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Good job missing the point. Literally there is no rules outside of fuck nazi. Tactics are decided on the individual and group level. Also trust me NO ONE bitches about AntiFa like other AntiFa members.
Yes there are dumb AntiFa with bad optics and tactics but we aren’t a card caring organization with membership logs, aside from telling a guy to fuck off there is no real way to kick people out.
That’s the benefit and negative of AntiFa. Anyone can be AntiFa, but ANYONE can be AntiFa.
Local group decide their targets some are more legitimate targets than others, would I have gone after Milo whatever his last name is. Meh, probably not but the Berkeley crowd has different motivations then the groups I rolled with.
Also I’m getting a 404 on the article listed so I can’t respond to it directly, but I will also posit that not every punk in Black is AntiFa so lots of stuff gets blamed on the group.
If you are interested in the topic I would recomend this book it does a pretty good job at explaining the motivations and history of AntiFa.
This book, it seems:
https://www.amazon.com/Antifa-Anti-Fascist-Handbook-Mark-Bray/dp/1612197035/
The New Yorker has a more sympathetic view:
An Intimate History of Antifa. It is a book review of the brand-new Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook by Mark Bray. It's 288 pp, 14 dollars, and you can buy it on Amazon. 33 reviews with a 2* average for now.
(I am not going to make any comparisons to my Rage Against the Machine CD's manufactured by the Sony Music Corporation. That is the New Yorker's job. They don't.)
>answering violence with violence will not get anyone anywhere.
you know literally nothing about the history of anti-fascism. what you are proposing has literally never once worked. antifa has worked.
> please feel free to change my opinion on the subject.
If you were skeptical you'd already have read on the subject of fascism and anti-fascism, but you haven't. At all. All you're doing is regurgitating "le common sense" redditisms about how fascists deserve to be allowed to terrorize us.
This is a concise history of anti-fascism. As someone who has been in anti-fascist circles for many years, I can say that it is quite good. Read that if you're actually skeptical. If not, then don't ask for people to change your opinion. What you need to know is all in that book.
> if you think your side is in the right by punching them then you're in the wrong.
My family was in the camps. Modern nazis want to recreate those camps. Violence isn't the only means of resisting nazis, but it is entirely acceptable. A variety of tactics is required to stop nazism.
It's honestly upsetting how many nazis and nazi sympathizers are flooding this sub lately.
Before this thread is locked, last time the topic came up someone asked if there’s an Antifa manifesto or anything. I recommend this book:
https://smile.amazon.com/Antifa-Anti-Fascist-Handbook-Mark-Bray/dp/1612197035
Ignore the title, it isn’t a “handbook” to being Antifa. It’s a history of anti fascism and the reasoning behind the movement. It’s by an academic so it isn’t the best written thing in the world but is still interesting regardless of what you may think of Antifa.
Which is to miss the point, entirely...
Seriously, read that Mark Bray article. If it seems disingenuous, that's because it is. Mark Bray is the author of the Antifa Handbook. Why is he the one The Washington Post permits to give a presumably objective look at the organization?
Imagine if months ago, when the term "alt-right" was first being discussed nationally, WaPo posted an article titled, "Who are the Alt-Right?" written by, perhaps, Richard Spencer?
https://www.amazon.com/Antifa-Anti-Fascist-Handbook-Mark-Bray/dp/1612197035?SubscriptionId=0EP44N4Z8Y93MBZ1ZC82&tag=wamu-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1612197035
Sadly it seems to only be on Amazon
Not that you're asking the question in good faith, but the answer depends on who you ask.
The problem is that people's beliefs aren't interested in facts. For example, I can show you research that shows that there are around 11 million white nationalists in the US, and you won't be able to find any reputable research that disagrees or challenges thst estimate, but you won't actually believe it because you have FEELINGS.
ThE AnTI-fASciTs ArE tHe ReAl FasCiStS!
Your comment is the height of ignorance. Honestly, I'm not even sure how someone on this sub could hold that opinion unless you stumbled upon it by mistake. Antifa groups do not target anyone except fascists. When fascist activity dies down, the anti fascist activity dies down with it. They don't turn on the next group of people as fascists would. There is no ANTIFA group. There are antifa groups like the Rose City Antifa, Anti-Racist Action, Redneck Revolt... and many, many others, but ANTIFA is a just shorthand for anti-fascism.
"The queer quest is to survive, the fascist quest is to be the only survivor." - Natalie herself said that. Replace queer with any oppressed group and the fascists are coming for them. And when the fascists do come you can't change who you are. You're fucked. You can't stop being a Jew or black or etc... but, if you are fascist and the anti-fascists come for you, then you can just say you're going to change and they will let you change. A large amount of anti-fascists are converted fascists. That makes antifa groups very not fascist. Trying to draw an equivalence is either buying into right wing propaganda or just plain dumb.
Olly really goes in depth about this and Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook lays out a pretty good picture of what antifa is and what antifa groups do. I suggest you educate yourself about the people who are sacrificing so much to fight real fascism.
https://www.amazon.com/Antifa-Antifascist-Handbook-Mark-Bray/dp/1612197035
not available yet, but i found it at my local book store last night which you should buy it at if you do
I can’t find the Biden video on anything but Neo Nazi websites and having been stalked by a Neo Nazi group is rather not risk my safety. I couldn’t find anything reputable at all.
So, we’re down to one attorney general with one tweet. With an attention grabbing book cover that you can buy on Amazon about the history of fascism.
“Many Democrats support the Antifa movement” is s stretch. I haven’t even found an instance where someone was actually harmed by the Antifa movement.
But bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe, am I right?
It's been around since before WW2 in a great many forms. Sometimes it's more formally organized than others, sometimes less so.
The current American iteration of antifa can be traced to Anti Racist Action, which came out of Minneapolis in the 80s, itself inspired by French, German, and Italian Anti Fascist Action. They formalized the long-standing tradition of forcibly deterring neo-Nazis from infiltrating music scenes, bars, and working class/PoC neighborhoods. They went through various iterations themselves, falling apart when there wasn't much fascist activity to oppose, coming back when there was, spreading the movement around the continent, etc.
Antifa actions and groups take a lot of forms. Not every antifascist partakes in the black bloc or other immediate and dangerous activity either. Some provide medical services, some provide childcare, some provide food or a place to stay. But pretty universally and almost by definition, they're not especially organized.
Antifascist actions are for one thing: opposing fascists. Historically, most antifascists have been anarchists and autonomists, though you'll find plenty of communists and even some left-liberals in there too. By nature of these differences, they really only come together for these kind of bigger things upon which they all agree, and which they all also agree form a more immediate threat to their community than their (sometimes significant) disagreements.
Some of the misconceptions ITT are these:
-"Antifa is an attitude." I'll commend your principled opposition to fascism as a sign of your basic human decency, but if that attitude doesn't translate to action, it isn't antifa in the historical sense of that term.
-"Black bloc and antifa are separate things." No, black bloc is a protest tactic widely associated with antifa. The idea is, if you get enough folks together dressed identically, the folks who are there to wreck shit can do so without being easily identified by law enforcement or fascists.
-"Anarchists aren't real antifa, they're hijacking it." This is the worst of these misconceptions. The history of antifa as we think of it is associated with nothing more so than anarchism. Like I said, you'll find a lot of political stripes will participate, but it's the anarchists that have carried the load historically. The red and black double flag logo does, in fact, represent communism and anarchism. It's probably a reference to Otto von Bismarck, who once said of anarchists and communists: “Crowned heads, wealth and privilege may well tremble should ever again the Black and Red unite!"
If you're interested in a quick and dirty (and pretty damn good) history of antifascism, allow me to recommend Mark Bray's [Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook] (https://www.amazon.com/Antifa-Anti-Fascist-Handbook-Mark-Bray/dp/1612197035). It's a quick read, and it's got a lot more information than you'll ever get from most news sources trying to stumble through speculation.
A friend of mine who reads a lot about politics tells me that Antifa is poorly represented and she recommended that I read the book Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook to get a better idea of what Antifa is about.
Apparently they have been around for the better part of a century, having started up with the start of the first fascist regimes.
I'm still undecided on what I think of them.
It doesn't matter as I don't go on marchers with neo-nazis or white supremacists.
> Maybe, but beating them in the streets only creates more Nazi's,
citation needed
For plenty of examples that explicitly contradict your claim, collected by a historian of political radicalism & human rights, read this.
Archives for the links in comments:
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https://www.amazon.com/Antifa-Anti-Fascist-Handbook-Mark-Bray/dp/1612197035
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Is a sort of history of Antifa, as least as the author sees it.
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I bought a copy so.... as if I'm not already on a list! I haven't studied it yet, though. And I'm not sure how the author's version of antifa squares with antifa groups going around, which seem to have extended things from not just being anti-fascist to wanting to eliminate borders completely. Like, huh?
Here's a start:
Antifa Handbook
Militant Anti-Fascism
Combined with actually doing the things the far left calls for. Fascism doesn't come up in times of equal prosperity. It gains momentum when people are hopeless, when the system has failed them, when they feel threatened and fearful. If you want to defeat fascism you have to address the root causes - the racial ones and the economic/political ones.
> (and I suspect that West probably doesn't personally know that everyone in that group was identified with Antifa but still spread this talking point anyway).
And yet here you are, who have never spoken with anyone engaged in anti-fascist organizing, who have probably never marched in a street, spreading all kinds of Fox News talking points about "the ANTIFA."
You haven't the faintest idea what antifa is about. But you should. I strongly recommend talking to someone engaged in that work (which is 99% non-violent). Or read this book by scholar Mark Bray: https://www.amazon.com/Antifa-Anti-Fascist-Handbook-Mark-Bray/dp/1612197035
Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook
hell, they sell their literal how-to-riot guides!
Someone whose business has been burned by the rioters over the past few years should launch a class-action suit on them for dealing in that contraband!
From the book Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook by Mark Bray
According to Bray, Antifa “can variously be described as a kind of ideology, an identity, a tendency or milieu, or an activity of self-defense.” It’s a leaderless, horizontal movement whose roots lie in various leftist causes—Communism, anarchism, Socialism, anti-racism. Antifa activists believe that Fascists forfeit their rights to speak and assemble when they deny those same rights to others through violence and intimidation. https://www.amazon.com/Antifa-Anti-Fascist-Handbook-Mark-Bray/dp/1612197035/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Antifa%3A+The+Anti-Fascist+Handbook&qid=1569685904&sr=8-1
How I see it. To me Antifa reminds me of the organizational semi structure of Anonymous 4chan group. That was in occupy wall street. Where anyone can become a member. As long as they follow the few rules they have. Online there would be meet ups and people show up.
It is hard for us here in America to comprehend that there are many styles of organization not just Capitalist centralized structure. In fact, many styles have and do exist all throughout history. The benefits of this type of leaderless organization (Because there are different styles of leaderless organization) is that it can be deployed rapidly. Since there is no leader forces have no way of focusing on one member. Since they can claim it and leave it just as fast harder for forces to dismantle it. It can blend within the population. Harder for the ego to grow since everyone is the same. There is no rank and file. There are cons like every style. Antifa then is an organizing strategy, not an actual group of people. They can have members of other groups or individuals.
Modern Antifa was inspired by the militant anti fascist network that lasted through 1932 to 1933 called Antifaschistische Aktion the abbreviation would be Antifa. Modern Antifa are inspired but are not the same because they were an actual group.
In the 1970s the far right extreme groups started to rise again. Although always existing in one form or another they picked upped the pace during the 70s. In Britain the skinhead white power groups started infiltrating the punk rock scene. Following the fall of the Berlin wall Neo Nazis started to grow. Eventually the far right spread and woke up the American far right racist groups. The book The Turner Diaries became a call to arms to many American racist. They quickly found out that the new recruiting method would be online. And thus to counter them the Anti-Fascist groups began again. Learning from the past adopting the colors and tactics of the ones before them.
You clearly have no interest in facts or reality or debating in good faith and just want to make wildly inaccurate claims and paint your opponents with emotionally loaded terms.
I changed my tune because I took the time to actually read up on Antifa and refresh myself. You should probably do the same so you stop sounding like a poorly informed idiot. If you did that you might actually know that they do have a clear plan of action and clear agenda. For Antifa, direct confrontation is a key strategy intended to shut down far-right demonstrations and block platforms for hate speech.
You'd also know they aren't a single unified group, but a patchwork of affiliated groups, and various local and regional affiliated groups are going to have a slightly different method of approaching the work. Despite that they have clearly defined rules of engagement and manuals for organizing and action.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/08/23/what-antifa-and-what-does-movement-want/593867001/
https://www.amazon.com/Antifa-Anti-Fascist-Handbook-Mark-Bray/dp/1612197035
If you bothered to actually learn something about them you'd also know they have actually been successful quite a few times, despite your false claims (presumably pulled straight out of your ass) to the contrary.
https://www.newstatesman.com/world/north-america/2018/03/how-antifa-uses-no-platforming-successfully-fight-white-supremacy
Directly from one of their own sites:
"Antifa action against fascist organizing has proven to be effective. Direct confrontation in Charlottesville ended the ‘Unite the Right’ rally before it even began, and a timely intervention the previous evening thwarted the far right’s ominous attempt to attack a community meeting in a black church. Antifa action succeeded in halting a far right demonstration in Boston. Anarchists also prevailed definitively against the far right in Berkeley, pushing back their police protection and chasing them out of Martin Luther King Jr Park. The success of these battles will be remembered as pivotal moments in what is sure to be an enduring struggle against government supported white supremacist violence."
That sounds like a lot of success to me. They even drove Richard Spencer to quit his college speaking tour, and ended rallies in Houston and Tennessee.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/03/12/antifa-is-winning-richard-spencer-rethinks-his-college-tour-after-violent-protests/?utm_term=.ef366dc462ab
https://www.newsweek.com/antifa-claims-victory-after-alt-right-pulls-out-second-half-white-lives-matter-695634
https://antiracistaction.org/nazis-not-welcome-antifascist-victory-in-houston/
As far as violence being all they do, you continue to be incredibly and totally wrong.
"But at a moment when Trump’s “violence on many sides” rhetoric has installed a one-dimensional image of antifa in the wider imagination, Jenkins insists that large-scale standoffs are only part of what the movement does—and not the most important part. Antifa also aims to shame white supremacists, heightening the social cost of involvement with racist organizations. “You’ve got to be proactive against them when they’re not rolling 500 deep,” he said. That’s where doxing comes in. In the wake of Charlottesville, he points out, Unite the Right rallygoers are being identified online, with lasting consequences. One has left college, another has been fired from his job at a Berkeley, California, hot dog stand. “These are kids who thought it was funny hassling people online and think they can get away with it in real life,” said Jenkins. “And then they learn the hard way: Real life is different than online.”
from
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/08/daryle-jenkins-has-stepped-up-to-explain-the-shadowy-groups-violent-tactics-to-the-world.html
Antifa does defend protestors. For example from one person who was at Charlottesville: "in Charlottesville, the counterprotestors “nonviolent” stance was met with heavily armed men on the right. They came with bats, clubs, plywood shields painted with swastikas, brass knuckles, tear gas canisters, and wooden sticks. Not to mention the guns. The heavily armed militia were everywhere. They liked that they made you feel nervous. It was fun for them. Those are the people Antifa stepped up to defend against...
...I never felt safer than when I was near antifa. They came to defend people, to put their bodies between these armed white supremacists and those of us who could not or would not fight. They protected a lot of people that day, including groups of clergy. My safety (and safety is relative in these situations) was dependent upon their willingness to commit violence. " LINK
Who are these innocent people you claim they attacked? Protestors at a white supremacist rally? That isn't innocent, it's complicit.
You're a racist and a fascist if you support racism and fascism. This isn't a difficult concept. The whole claim that they just call anyone they don't like those terms is utterly false and just a tactic the right uses to try and hide their shitty behaviour. You aren't a racist and a fascist because you don't believe what I believe, you are a racist and a fascist because you believe in racism and fascism and support racist fascist leaders. To be clear, this is a rhetorical you.
You clearly don't have the slightest shred of self awareness. You are whining about antifa supposedly playing victim when faced with violence, while repeatedly playing victim and whining about all the supposed violence antifa directs against fascists. This is a common tactic. Some have claimed Antifa are a "gift to the alt-right," letting them play victim and validating their paranoid fantasies about the persecution of white dudes
There is nothing weak about people standing up to fascists and banding together to smash them. The fact that they are smart enough not to fight when they are outnumbered doesn't make them stupid or cowardly, it means they have a grasp on good tactics and when not to fight. Only a total moron would take on a mob of nazi pigs by themselves when they could instead regroup and present a united front.
Antifa has been successful, white supremacist rally attendance is way down lately. Clearly they are doing something right.
You haven't provided an argument at all, just a bunch of serious misconceptions and baseless insults. Again, you severely overestimate yourself.
Here you go.
Seriously though, if you want to understand us, our history, and our motivation, then read that. It's written by an insider -a member of an anarchist federation- who's been involved in leftist struggle for decades. It is the best single source of information you will find on anti-fascism. It might even be in your local library.
Are you seriously using a dictionary to define "uniform"? You are aware that your definition is the adjective form of Uniform and not the Noun, right? Here, let me help you
> dress of a distinctive design or fashion worn by members of a particular group and serving as a means of identification
That's the one. But as it's been said over and over, this is not a uniform to identify themselves, it's a tactic to avoid identification. For more information on similar tactics, see Black Bloc.
As for a literal history book (have you read your article?), that's not an official handbook or anything like that. Here's the Amazon link to the book, because aparently, an anarchist "terrorist group" sells their super-secret books on fucking Amazon.
Maybe because it was written by a historian that's sympathetic with the movement, and that's it. As you may or may not have read on your own article, that book is from 2017, and the Antifascist movement exists since 1920.
But i find it interesting that you feel that Fascists "should not be poked", and that you are happy to outarm and outnumber others to defend them.
> the very nature of addressing the privileged upper class is addressing the power and privilege that their money and status grants them. It's inherently critical of neoliberal capitalism because of this.
Bullshit; money and power never enter into any approved privilege dynamic. If the did, Warren wouldn’t constantly be on the defensive from neolibs like Harris accusing her of pandering to racism by not mentioning race enough.
> You specifically left out the "class war" shit that gets the right so assblasted.
If you’re talking about conservatives, they’re the other side of the neolib coin. And again, neoliberalism loves to get proles fighting and then have the left hail it as the coming of the class war, this is what happens all the time, and it’s why Antifa believes they’re fighting the power by breaking a Starbucks window.
> another leftist movement in America sabotaged. Better uncritically blame people being mean
Yeah, the people being mean were the neolibs. They destroyed it with woke social progressivism. You subscribe to a morality that was invented to undermine genuine anger at elites and turn it into a squabble over race. That’s your side that did that.
> Trump voters are older fat fucks who make money as landlords or pool cleaning businesses.
Absolute bullshit; he won on the backs of angry disenfranchised laborers who were being displaced by literal slave labor from the south. The fat fucks vote GOP no matter what, not the people who came out to vote for him in ‘16.
> The real hard workers? The ones who know that shit is stupid and just want what's best for their family? We can work with that.
“We can work with the proles as long as they just shut up and admit that we’re morally better than them because we went to college and learned how privilege actually works, the dumb fucks.”
> how people being mean made everyone a Nazi
“Less and less attention was paid to defending the real needs of the working class, and finally political expediency made it seem undesirable to relieve the social or cultural miseries of the broad masses at all, for otherwise there was a risk that these masses, satisfied in their desires could no longer be used forever as docile shock troops.” -Hitler on nominally pro-labor progressives
He says, multiple times, in his book, that he would not have been able to get people to vote for him if the socdems hadn’t embraced this sort of unhelpful proletarian infighting. He literally brags about how lefty parties scorning the working class left a giant door for him to walk through. He says that if the bourgeoise wanted to defang the socdems, they’d treat the workers better, and laughs at them for being unable to realize that.
> Why weren't the small government conservatives put into camps?
They were. The Center party, a spineless nominally center-right party, was outlawed and its members forced to join the NSDAP on pain of prison, just like the socialists who were told it was the SA or jail.
Oh, and attempting to co-opt actual pro-worker movements as “SJW’s”, who are authoritarian neolibs, is sickening.
> a failure of the left is not justification to become a Nazi
I didn’t say it justified anything, I said it was a cause. No, it isn’t justified, but when people are treated badly, they lash out and run to the other end of the spectrum. This is just human nature; you have to deal with it.
> what the fuck is up with you guys acting like antifa is an organization or something?
Their official, designated handbook is literally given away by Amazon, they have cell leaders like Felarca, they have fucking sponsors. Just because a group is organized by cells to be harder to track doesn’t mean it isn’t unified or doesn’t follow an organizational philosophy.
> Where is their mission statement? How do they coordinate?
Read their book for details. I found it very interesting.
> Who is the Al-Baghdadi of antifa?
Movements don’t need singular leaders. Baghdadi dies tomorrow, ISIS will still exist. Their aims are set by the people who pay them, so that’s NGO’s, universities, other lefty groups, corporate sponsors like BK, etc.
> who's side were the "Jews will not replace us!" protesters on?
The Nazi side, I’d guess.
> 'm becoming a little concerned with the fact that you guys seem to think that white people like me becoming Nazi's is a natural reaction to anti-racism and progressive politics?
When people are treated badly, they respond by lashing out. Neoliberalism has fucked them. The left has hung them out to dry. They’re naturally gonna embrace nasty shit on the other side of the spectrum; I’m not saying this is good, but I’m saying it is happening.
https://www.amazon.com/Antifa-Anti-Fascist-Handbook-Mark-Bray/dp/1612197035
Bray is a professor of history at Dartmouth who has studied the various incarnations of the Antifa movement; in fact, he literally wrote the book. Appealing to his knowledge of Antifa is called an appeal to relevant authority (type 1), which is not actually a fallacy. In fact, if you look at the end of an academic paper and see a big list of sources, each one of those is it's own little appeal to relevant authority. I suppose they don't teach the difference between valid and fallacious appeals to authority in philosophy 100 courses anymore.
As for this moral analysis of Antifa's praxis, here's a question: are civilian casualties of US military operations acceptable? If so, then I struggle to see how a stray punch or two is somehow unacceptable when blowing children up is acceptable.
As for worries about escalation, it's not like what we were doing before Antifa came on the scene was stopping the Nazis. And Antifa tatics have worked in the past: see the Battle of Cable Street. True, it may not work in the US, but if it doesn't, I suspect it will be because of all the fucking equivocating.
Finally, Beinart's blah-blah--in failing to defend Trump as not-fascist he fails to undermine Antifa's justification for going after his supporters. He is just relying on the reader to agree with the implicit premise that Trump isn't fascist and then conclude along with him that Antifa is just doing wanton violence, instead of directing violence at fascist enablers. It's pure rhetorical sleight of hand.
>Antifa isn't even a real thing.
It's not?
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